


From Dust to Dust, Ashes to Ashes

by SophieRomanoff97



Series: The Lives of Little Natasha and her Family [14]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: ABDL, Age Play, Age Regression/De-Aging, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Awesome Natasha Romanov, Awesome Steve Rogers, BAMF Dora Milaje, Everyone Is Poly Because Avengers, F/M, Family Feels, Feels, Genius Shuri (Marvel), Heavy Angst, Infantilism, Little Brothers, Little Sisters, M/M, Multi, Natasha Romanov Feels, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Natasha Romanov Needs a Hug, Non-Sexual Age Play, Non-Sexual Intimacy, OTP Feels, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Polyamory, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Protective Avengers, Protective Natasha Romanov, Protective Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Is a Good Bro, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, The Avengers (2012) - Freeform, The Avengers Are Good Bros, Wakanda (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-07 00:12:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18399200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SophieRomanoff97/pseuds/SophieRomanoff97
Summary: Post-infinity War.'Natty wakes up terrified. Terrified and alone and so sad she thinks she'll break in two. She hiccups weakly, tears streaming down her face. She can't hold the agony inside and she presses her face to the grass, screaming and crying and gasping, broken broken broken.'Natasha drops after the battle and it is down to a kind stranger to help her search for any of her family still remaining.As always these fics are consensual, non-sexual age regression, not age play. No nasty comments will be tolerated.





	From Dust to Dust, Ashes to Ashes

**Author's Note:**

> Warning; angsty, really freaking angsty but it's post-IW what isn't angsty after that film honestly? I cannot stress this enough. Angst. Cause littles dropping during something like IW is angsty in of itself but uh...I made it worse. If you're continuing on and love angst then I hope you enjoy!
> 
> I decided to switch up the tense this fic, let me know if it works, though I'm not sure I'll continue with it after this one.
> 
> In this fic I decided to change up who got snapped because 6 of our family are actually still here in the film and that wasn’t angsty enough. Sorry?
> 
> More characters/pairings/tags will be added each chapter because spoilers. This may come out at about 3 chapters but it's me so honestly who knows. 
> 
> You don't /need/ to read the other fics in this series but to understand the dynamics etc it is kinda important to catch up on those first.
> 
> Also, for my loyal readers, I am sorry for this haha. I'm in the middle of the last Hidden chapter so stay tuned, it's coming!
> 
> Welcome to the start of the angsty chapters. Fluff ones will still be happening I just have a lot of feels and ideas.
> 
> ALSO I'm not sure if this is an AU of my universe and isn't to be taken as part of this series or if it will fit in chronologically with the universe I've created. Who knows???

Natasha and Clint are holding hands when it happens.

The battle field is strewn with bodies, humans, aliens and others alike.

Their family is separated, fighting Thanos and his army from all sides, split up all around the fields of Wakanda.

But somehow, Clint and Natasha find their way back to each other before...before  _it_ happens.

Their fingers clasped together, bodies bruised and tired and aching, they cling to one another as their friends start to disappear.

Natasha doesn't dare breathe, face slack and eyes wide with horror. In front of her, hands clutching Vision's broken body, Wanda is blown away.

She hears weapons crash to the ground, those left behind choking on words, cries coming from the areas surrounding them.

She clings to Clint's hands, terrified eyes lifting to his face. He looks sick, pale, weak but he's there, he's standing beside her, he's touching her skin, alive.

Until he isn’t.

The archers eyes widen, panic on his features. He chokes out, "I love-"

And then he's gone.

Natasha's hands fall limply to the side, dust on her fingers.

She watches, detached and broken, as Clint is gone gone gone, nothing but a pile of dust on the grass.

She whimpers, taking a trembling step back. There is no life and death fight going on anymore, just death. Nothing to fight, nothing to fix, nothing to do. The war is over and Natty screams and sobs inside her mind.

She falls to her knees, a low keening sob escaping her lips as she frantically buries her hands in the dirt, tears falling thick and fast.

"No-" she whimpers again, _falling and falling and falling_.

She drops right there in the grass, curled on the ground with her hands clutching what remains of Clint.

Natty wakes up terrified. Terrified and alone and so sad she thinks she'll break in two. She hiccups weakly, tears streaming down her face. She can't hold the agony inside and she presses her face to the grass, screaming and crying and gasping, _broken broken broken_.

"Daddy-" she moans low in her throat, _daddy's gone, daddy's gone forever, you're alone. All alone._

She wants to join him, she doesn't want to be here. It hurts it hurts _it hurts_.

Natty continues to scream and cry, until her voice disappears just like her daddy has. Then she's left with no tears left to cry, hands covered in dust, her heart shattered.

...

The first person to stumble across Natty is someone the girl doesn't know. Natasha, deep in the corners of her mind, supplies her with a few images; her and the woman fighting with Wanda not so long before. Natty doesn't know her but her bigself remembers that the woman is not a stranger so the little girl lifts her head.

The woman looks upset, but Natty is upset too, so that's okay. Sniffling, the girl slowly pulls her hands from the pile of dirt.

The woman watches her for a moment before offering out her hand.

Natty recoils, realising too late that the woman just wanted to help her up.

The woman, in her burnt orange armour, holds her hands up to indicate she means no harm. Still, Natty clambers to her feet by herself instead.

It seems like the woman doesn't know what to say about what has just happened, so she says, "I appreciate the help back there."

Natty looks blank. Big Natasha is quiet and Natty doesn't know what she's on about.

"With the fight?" The woman says.

Natty doesn't know what to say. She doesn't understand.

_Not supposed to talk to strangers, daddy said-_

Natty's eyes fill with tears once more.

_Daddy's dead, remember?_

Her dirt covered hands come to cover her eyes, her shoulders shaking as she bites down hard into her lip.

"Oh-" the woman says, "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realise you were dropped."

It's clear even to Natty that the woman doesn't know what to do. Usually a big would help a little find someone they knew, preferably their own big. But half the world has just died, so maybe there are no little's bigs left.

Natty whimpers, grinding her palms into her eyes.

"Natasha, that's your name, isn't it? Do you want to come with me, we can go sit down inside." She doesn't say that they can see if any of her family was alive on the way.

"I know you don't know who I am, but I know you. My name is Okoye. We...were together earlier. I'm from here, Wakanda. I just want to make sure you are okay. Can I take your hand, Natasha?"

Natty knows she shouldn’t hold strangers hands but this stranger is very nice and she says she knows her and Natty feels so very alone.

She takes the woman's-Okoye's-hand.

They start walking.

Natty feels detached, like she is not in her body, like she is not Natasha at all but just someone watching the scene.

They walk past people and piles of dust alike. They see people crying, they see blank gazes and trembling bodies.

They walk past something she recognises and Natty stumbles over her feet as what it is sinks in.

Her daddy's shield. The shield he never puts down during a fight, not ever.

She doesn’t think she can take more sadness.

Natty doesn't really understand what's going on, why people are gone, where they'd gone and what had happened to them. But big Natasha understands. Half of her brain wants to shield the other but both sides of Natasha know the younger has to know.

She pulls her hand from Okoye's, taking trembling steps over to the shield. She crouches, fingers reaching to touch the metal.

Touching her daddy's shield, she just knows knows knows that he's dead. Her family is dead, probably all of them.

_Alone. Just like before. Stupid and a baby and all alone forever._

She pulls her hand back from the metal, just as someone calls her name.

The voice breaks half way through, pained and frantic and relieved.

The girl turns, eyes widening. She stumbles up to her feet, sobbing again, gasping as she runs straight towards the person.

"Daddy!" She sobs, arms flying around Steve as he lifts her clean off the floor, his arms bruising around her. He holds her the tightest he ever has, face buried against her hair. He's crying too, shoulders shaking with it.

Natty clings to him, arms and legs around him and never ever going to let go. "Daddy-" she whispers this time, face streaked with fresh tears.

"Oh baby girl. Oh, baby." Her daddy whispers.

“I was so scared,” the girl hiccups, voice muffled by the shoulder of her daddy’s bloodied suit.

“I know baby.” Steve whispers back, lips against her hair. He doesn’t say anything else because there isn’t anything to say. He watched Bucky disintegrate before his very eyes. Bruce’s suit was empty, abandoned and he was nowhere to be seen. They hadn’t seen Tony the whole lead up to the fight and he was officially MIA, though it was likely he’d been taken as well. And by the tear tracks on his little girl’s face, Clint was gone too. Thor was trying to collect up any individuals on their own, any dropped littles or bigs left behind.

Steve had split up from Thor, determined to find out the fates of the rest of his family. Now, with Natty in his arms, he realises that more than half their family is gone. And no one knows about their extended family, about Phil and Maria and Nick and Bobbi and Melinda. Though, Steve supposes, half of them are going to be gone too.

It hurts too much but Steve has to look after Natasha. She is the only one of their family left that needs him.

Looking over at Okoye, the man nods his thanks, voice gruff when he speaks next. “Some of the others are rounding up…” he didn’t want to use the word survivors, “the people on their own, they can use all the help they can get.”

The woman nods, the lines of her face sharp and pinched. She picks up a fallen spear and disappears into the trees.

Steve holds Natasha tight. He doesn’t think he will ever be able to let her go.

…

They put off flying home for nearly three weeks. Nakia and Ramonda have taken on the leadership role for Wakanda, Shuri, M’Baku and Okoye with them. Most of the Dora Milaje is gone so the latter three are trying to rebuild it with who they have left. Steve is still the leader of the remaining Avengers, though there aren’t many left. Rocket has joined them, since none of his team returned and Groot disappeared like the rest. Thor and Rhodey remain. Through static-y phone calls and encrypted lines they have found that Pepper and Happy are okay but they cannot get a hold of Phil, Maria, Bobbi, Melinda or Nick. It is assumed that they are gone along with Sam, Bruce, Tony, Clint, Bucky, T’Challa, Wanda, Scott and Peter. They found Vision’s broken body not long into the search. Those who had taken to the sky in order to fight are suspected to have been taken like the others, though there is the added fear there that maybe they died before the snap, that there is no chance at all to get those ones back. Peter, Tony, and Rocket’s family could have been long dead, bodies on an alien planet, never to come home.

Steve, Natasha and Thor try not to focus on that. They throw themselves into work, into research, into planning. Shuri is amazing, a literal genius, she tries tirelessly to figure out what has happened. They don’t have all the information, no idea what happened in the skies, no idea where Tony went. Thor says he left the rest of The Guardians and went off with Rocket and Groot and that he suspects the remainders of the team found Tony and Peter.

Somebody called Wong called their house, Pepper had picked up. A man called Stephen Strange was also missing and the last time he was seen was with Tony so it’s possible that he was also with Tony and Peter when it all went down. Apparently he was the keeper of the Time Stone so it’s also possible to garner that either Thanos killed him for it or Strange was up to something, that he had seen what would happen and had enacted a plan. That’s the first good news they have had. That this stranger could have planned for this and that those gone were not really gone.

It’s also bad news for Steve, Nat and Thor. They know now, fairly securely, that Thanos fought Strange. Therefore it’s likely that Tony and Peter were there and fought Thanos also. It’s looking like they could be dead dead, not just gone, and the pain of that will overwhelm them if they let it.

They try not to let it. Shuri and Thor work in the lab, because Shuri is a genius and Thor knows an awful lot about the stones. Happy has arranged for Wong to be flown in, since he is an expert in the Time Stone and it seems like that is the one they need to investigate further. Slowly it becomes knowledge to everyone, through whispered conversations, that the leaders are trying to find a way to go back in time.

Steve isn’t sure what his job is, this is Wakanda not New York and there are barely any Avengers left to lead over. He’s got no clue what Shuri talks about, so is also no help there. He feels useless without a job, needs a job, needs to be busy. So he takes over the makeshift daycare. There are two separate ones; ones for biological children, another for littles. Steve takes over the latter.

Steve supposes, even though it hurts like hell, that he is lucky. He has two members of his family left, because they are…were a fairly big group. But those in the daycare have either lost most of their own family, with the remaining members having to work, or they were the ones left with no family. There seem to be more littles left behind then there are bigs and the daycare leaders are spread thin. It hurts Steve badly to see the tear streaked faces, the sobs and screams for their daddy or their mommy or their siblings. It hurts, but Steve knows he needs to do it. He is lucky to have Natasha and Thor, some have been less than lucky.

Steve goes through the motions, wakes up, works out, throws down some food and goes to the daycare. It may not be the leadership role he is used to but he thinks this might be just as important. He’s a big by nature and has been dealing with littles for years, not only that, he’s used to panic attacks and troubling behaviour so he slips into the role with ease. He is good at this. This he can do. He can help.

On days where Natasha is dropped, she comes with Steve to the daycare. She’s not very good at making friends but she is never alone there. On one of the first days, a little girl in a red dress came over to Natty. She said that she liked the girl’s fiery hair and that it matched her dress and did she want to come play? She did. From there on, Natasha always had someone to play with, to sit with, to colour with, to nap with.

On the days she isn’t dropped, Nat trains with Okoye and the remaining Dora Milaje. She loves good, hard workouts, she loves finding a move she’d never done before. She throws herself into it, enjoying the burn in her muscles, the ache in her body. She trains long after the others have dispersed. Sometimes she spars with Okoye and neither of them hold back. Natasha leaves with cuts and bruises. Maybe if she fights enough, trains enough, the outside of her will hurt more than the inside.

Nineteen days after Thanos and Steve and Natasha have no real plans to go home. It would be too painful to see their families belongings, to see their empty rooms, the empty playroom with trains and toy cars scattered about, to see the empty lab with discarded experiments, to see their family photos on every surface. But they get a message on their phones early in the morning on the nineteenth. Their alarm has been tripped. It could be anyone, someone breaking into the tower for money or food or things to sell. But it could be someone they know.

Steve and Natasha, curled in one of the guest rooms, get up, pyjamas and all and run to wake Shuri. She hacks into the security cameras. Out of all the people it could have been, the pair are surprised to see Scott Lang with a young girl clutching his hand. After a few minutes, Shuri opens the communications and they are able to talk with Scott.

He says he has an idea, he has a way to help.

Steve and Natasha rush to the jet that brought Wong to them, only stopping to grab their essentials and some clothes. They are flying long before the rest of Wakanda wakes up.

They are going home.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Leave a comment or a kudos if you're so inclined and subscribe so you don't ever miss an update. Love you! <3


End file.
